'I am standing in the lobby of an international hotel in Kuwait city.

It is just after dark. A US army major is talking urgently into a mobile phone to a journalist who has got lost in southern Iraq.

"These voices you can hear," the major is saying. "Are they English or Arabic? Arabic.

This feeling that so far we are all inescapably part of someone's war effort is unsettling "Then lie flat on the ground. Do not move.

"Switch off your mobile phone because if it rings it will give away your position. Stay there all night.

"When you hear American forces arrive wave something white and put your hands up.

"Now", he adds ominously, "is there any message you would like me to pass on to your next of kin while you still can?' ...(allan little )

wondering if marcel ophüls ever finished his third part on war correspondents.